By Kenny

I have a lot to be thankful for.  I grew up in a great family.  And unlike a lot of folks here, I wasn’t raised Mormon.  That came later.

I would say I was raised to be open-minded and tolerant.  I grew up a regular Catholic church goer in a liberal NY town.  I even taught kids in my church’s RCIA program.  That said, my family would always look at the spirit of the law.  It didn’t matter what was true and what was a nice story - you go to church for some peace of mind and to try to be a better person, right?  We did anyway.

My mom loved mystery novels, especially the ones the church wouldn’t want you to read.  She encouraged me to read the DaVinci Code, which I thought was outstanding for one reason: by the end it suggests that the church has been hiding a profound truth, and yet knowing this truth doesn’t eliminate the sense of wonder behind religion or the legitimacy of Christ’s teachings.  Some things are just true: that you should love and spend time with your family, that you should avoid allowing addictions to control your life, and so on.

At age eleven or so, I remember my parents let me sip some beer.  It was nasty!  I acquired a dis-taste for alcohol, and never really chose to drink after that.  Also, since I didn’t live in a gourmet coffee shop, the instant coffee my parents made was a major turn off for me.  My parents were big fans of tea so there was no avoiding that… but I was also under the impression that stuff is good for you.

As for sex, I’ve always respected women.  I was a firm believer in the idea of no sex before marriage when it was time to go to college, and yet my dad insisted on buying condoms with me at the local pharmacy where all of the cute girls I knew from high school worked.  I was so embarrassed!  But my parents trusted me, and wanted me to ‘be safe’.

Bottom line, I had great parents.  They always treated me like an adult.

Unfortunately, fast forward to late 2007: a start-up company that I helped build while I was in college turned sour.  It was VERY successful.  I made it that way – with the help of talented friends of mine.  But my boss knew that my friends and I had no ownership of the company on paper.  He wanted to bully us and keep paying us like students.  My boss loved money more than any of his employees.  I quit – three years down the drain.

I was crushed.  Maybe I was naïve.  Are people so money hungry, they don’t care about other people anymore?  I devoted my social life, and countless hours of unpaid overtime to this company.  I helped my best friends from college get jobs there.  They’ve all quit now, including the CTO, but at the time I felt alone.  Who could I talk to?  My friends weren’t ready to quit when I did, so why would they want to listen to me ranting about their boss?  They weren’t happy, but in the short term it was worth a paycheck to them to stay.

I ended up meeting a very sweet Mormon girl from Utah, who was exactly what I needed at the time.  She was far removed from everything.  She had the same sense of values I grew up with.  She seemed very family centered.  And sure I had seen the South Park episode about Mormons and all the crazy things they believe, but the moral of that episode is so strong: the Mormon kid has a great family, and if that’s not worth believing in, you’ve got a lot of learning to do buddy!

The Mormon church seemed like a strong community where people wouldn’t stab each other in the back.  After seeing how my boss treated me, I needed to believe there were still good people out there.  Plus, I WAS raised in a church that I didn’t really feel committed to.  My girlfriend had a lot of conviction that hers was the true church, so I thought it would be open-minded and tolerant of me to talk to the missionaries.

I ended up getting baptized after about three months.  I didn’t feel like I had all the answers, but certain things did resonate with me.   I didn’t like Catholic confessions.  Mormons don’t have that, you repent by making up for what you did wrong, and you talk to the Bishop if you need some help.  That makes sense!  How about the Word of Wisdom?  Well I don’t like drinking alcohol or coffee anyway, that’s not a problem for me.  And I really like the idea of agency – the ability to choose for yourself.  We're on this earth to experience life, to learn, and to grow.  I like that!

After I was baptized, the church dropped new information on me.  Yes I understand it’s a lay clergy, but I HAVE to have a calling?  It’s volunteer, sure, but I didn't realize you GET volunteered.  Are you allowed to say no?  I don't want to disappoint God.  Alcohol… I don’t drink it anyway, but you’re saying I CAN’T or else I’m not worthy for a temple recommend?  So basically I DON’T have the right to choose.  I have no agency.  Home teaching?  Nobody told me about this, I don’t believe in pushing my beliefs on other people, even if it IS the one true church!

I would talk to my girlfriend about these things, and she seemed pretty liberal minded.  She’d quote scripture and talk the spirit of the law with me.  Sure there are rules to get into the temple, but they’re to keep the place sacred.  She has her thai tea she likes to drink on rare occasion, but then she feels bad about it and doesn’t do it again for a long time.  I would say… why feel bad about it?  And how can you drink it ever if you truly believe it's a sin?  Is alcohol, let alone tea, really even a sin?  Shouldn’t we just drink in moderation, be responsible?  Isn’t that the spirit of the Word of Wisdom?

The agency issue in particular was eating away at me for months – and I can’t emphasize enough, I don’t even drink!  I’d be at a company party, and I’d just feel like an outcast because I can’t drink whether I wanted to or not.  I couldn’t watch rated-R movies with friends.  All of these elements add up to make you feel like you need to turn to the church for support – the one group that ‘understands you’.

I would bet that most converts also feel alienated by their families, but my parents warmed up to the Mormon idea within a few months.  What can I say, my parents are great!  Of course they didn’t like it that I threw away the church they raised me in, but my mom started buying me herbal teas that I could drink when I was home, and she respected the good values and community aspects of Mormonism… the parts she knew I was attracted to.  I’d complain sometimes about helping some old lady move apartments who was doing nothing but smoking on her stoop, clearly not investigating the church like she claimed.  And my mom would just say – well you are a really nice person, just don’t let people take advantage of you.

Fast forward to last October.  I had just about enough of Mormonism.  Proposition 8 was in the news, and I thought… is hurting a group of people EVER in line with God’s will?  I did my research, and I realized – the Bible undeniably states that homosexuality IS an abomination.  Let’s just ignore the fact that homosexuality is found in 10% of the population, across the board.  God says it.  Thomas S. Monson publicly supports Prop 8 too, and the prophet is the mouthpiece of God right?  Who am I to try to understand God’s will?  Cling to the iron rod, right?

A month or so earlier, I had had an interview for a temple recommend so I could perform baptisms for the dead.  The bishop asked: have I given any money to a group that goes against the church?  I was taken aback, what kind of jerk would do that?  I asked the bishop to clarify.  And he said, well you know, some people give money to Pride groups, and that’s actually a group that goes against church teachings.  At the time I thought wait, the way you worded that is a little funny.  Here’s a group you agree is GOOD, it would be worth giving money to, Jesus would probably support human rights, however you’re not worthy to enter God’s temple if you support a homosexual’s right to exercise their agency and live openly, free from the judgement and persecution of men, if not the judgement of God…

Then completely unexpectedly, my mom died this past October.  I had to answer some serious questions for myself – like does my mom, after the good life she lived, really need to be baptized in the Mormon church?  Do I even need to be in this church?  My parents didn’t care what religion I was a part of, they loved me unconditionally.  Is God so petty, that He needs me to be Mormon, or are my own parents more loving and more understanding than our Heavenly Father I've grown to resent the longer I stay in this church?

I left the church soon after my mom’s death.  After some arguing about my decision with my girlfriend, who seemed so sweet and caring whenever I was submitting to her church... she told me to stop using my mom’s death as a crutch.  She saw all these reasons why I wanted to leave the church before my mom died, and saw this as a weak last straw. She knew I supported a person’s right to drink alcohol.  She knew I was against Prop 8.  She was convinced I left the church either because I’m gay or because I’m an alcoholic.  I wish I was exaggerating.  She made it clear that she needed a temple marriage, no matter what I said about looking into other faiths and having an eternal marriage like my parents had.  Needless to say, I broke up with her.

Our relationship – and almost marriage, was completely conditional on me being Mormon.  She had no trust in me.  I was that impossible outlier who exists outside the church and yet represents all the values she really wanted in an eternal marriage: loyalty, trust, respect, responsibility – how is that possible?  I must have some vice she doesn't know about that's preventing me from living up to the Mormon faith.  Plus, she believes you won’t make it to heaven / the Celestial Kingdom without a temple marriage.  And isn’t leaving the church one of the worst sins you can commit?  That’s certainly not something a church leader would make up to maintain full church membership, and steady tithe payments.

And why did I really leave?  So I could have my agency back.  So I could feel good about making good decisions, rather than having those decisions made for me.  To support human rights and listen to my heart on important political issues.  To feel closer to my family after my mom's death.  And this was BEFORE finding overwhelming amounts of evidence that the LDS church is false.

Since I left the church, I’ve been happy, but I'm definitely a different person.  I read a great book: Joseph Campbell's "The Power of Myth" that put religion in perspective for me and answered a lot of my questions.  I now consider myself Agnostic, and I want to appreciate myth as food for the soul.  But now, I feel like I can't accept religion anymore, I can't 'just go' to be a better person when so many people think it's literal truth you should follow at the expense of your own family or at the expense of human rights.  I used to be tolerant of other religions, but after experiencing first hand how Mormonism can make you feel alienated, or how it can tear apart an engagement… why would I want to allow other people to live like that?  I used to CHOOSE not to drink.  Now I resent drinking, because I feel like I have something to prove – that I’m still a good person.

But I don't want to be hateful or spiteful.  I want to be my old self again, and to do that I need to associate with people who understand how it feels to be post-Mormon.  That’s why I’m here.